I'm always amazed that the naysayers do not see how this will all unfold. You guys don't see that the iPad introduction just merely said yes the iPad does exist with little other detail about it.

Apple will introduce iPhone 4.0 with much more functionality and more sophisticated development tools.

They aren't paying attention to the existing development tools anyway. For instance many of those posters don't know that you will be able to drag and drop files from your computer into any app that has sharing enabled. If their critical "missing features" are added they will be "late" and a new missing feature list will be developed.

Apple: The company whose products are evaluated based on what they don't have.

The iPad would have been a miracle machine had it had all the technology and performed all the tasks the hyper ventilating technoheads foretold. This is the hangover. I think it will sell phenomenally but its true potential will become apparent over time. Within a year or two this thing will be huge.

Well, wait until its in the stores. These people surveyed have not seen it yet.

Speaking of a broken record....do you have a cushioned seat on that bandwagon?

I have no doubt the iPad will sell millions. There are a lot of people out there looking for a color screened eBook reader. Not me, I want a little more from the device than just browsing the web and reading books.

To me the iPad is like the first generation iPhone, it was a revolutionary piece of crap. When the 3GS came along I grabbed one knowing it was finally a great device. Same thing with the iPad...I'll buy the third version.

Despite a highly publicized public debut, potential customers lost a great deal of interest in Apple's new touchscreen iPad after it was unveiled, a new study has found.

A survey of more than 1,000 randomly selected customers at the online marketplace Retrevo found that 52 percent of respondents have heard of Apple's iPad, but are not interested in buying one. Another 18 percent said they had not heard of the product, but also were not interested.

Prior to the product's unveiling, 26 percent of those surveyed had heard of the then-mythical "Apple tablet," but were not interested in buying one. That total doubled after the iPad's official Jan. 26 unveiling.

"It's the apps that sell smartphones like the iPhone and it could very well be those same apps that motivate buyers to run down to the Apple Store and get in line to buy a shiny new iPad," the company said. "Whether this device becomes a big hit is anyone’s guess but based on this study it sure looks doubtful."

The survey found that awareness of the iPad is high -- more than 80 percent of respondents said they had heard of Apple's product. Of those, 21 percent said they need more information on the iPad before they purchase, and 9 percent said they would likely buy one. The company even tracked conversations on Twitter, and found the iPad announcement rivaled talk of the U.S. presidential State of the Union address, held the same day.

The survey results suggest consumers may not see how the iPad would fit into their lives. While 5 percent said they "definitely" need one, 61 percent said they do not think they need an iPad.

In addition, the $130 premium cost to add 3G connectivity was found to be a turn-off for potential buyers. While 12 percent would pay the extra money for 3G and 29 percent would think about it, 59 percent of respondents said they would not pay any extra for 3G.

Retrevo's latest survey was conducted between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3 following Apple's announcement of the iPad, starting at $499 and scheduled to arrive in late March. The results were compared to a previous study done between Jan. 16 and Jan. 20, before the iPad was unveiled.

Last week, another study of medical professionals found that one in five physicians said they are likely to purchase an iPad. Of more than 350 clinicians surveyed, 9 percent said they plan to buy the product immediately, while another 13 percent intend to purchase one in the first year.

Analysts mostly expect the iPad to have a moderate but successful start, selling between one million and five million in its first year. The product's aggressive $499 starting price is seen to be its greatest asset. One analyst believes a sales "catalyst" must emerge -- as the iTunes Store did for the iPod, and App Store for the iPhone -- before the iPad sees significant growth.

I do not use apple.My business partner does.I will give credit for the great software.But limited hardware stinks.And yes cheap hardware is most of windows issues and apple does not want that.Hey i get that.As for the ipad.It is the same scam apple pulled on all the buyers of the first iphone.What scam you ask.Several hundreds of dollars for a high tech do it all phone.Ol wait no video camera.For that you would have to go get a $29.00 walmart track phone that HAS IT.How lame.And the apple drones never complained.Why?
Then gen 2 of iphone WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERA WOOOW HOOO. Yea right. Not adding the simple features then adding on next gen is a scam.And for the companies that make hackintosh do you think they would get business if apple would open up to more faster hardware.I hate gates and vista.But the new window 7 not to bad.At least i for $1,800 dollars i get a super laptop and compared to $1,800 to apple.well my hardware smokes.And to be fair i truly love linux opensuse the best.But linux has to many versions to ever make it.Ol the main reason i posted ipad a flop.No camera.But cheer up version 2 will have a camera woo hoo.and maybe another cool feature.

Apple needs to stop this nonsense of debuting a product and then saying it will be available X months later.

In this case, I almost think they had to debut it now.

If it is true that we can't buy them yet because they haven't completed [started?] FCC certification, then Apple was smart to announce it before any "leaks" from that process.

With all the "Jesus Tablet" rumors swirling around - claiming cameras on both sides, etc - they would have been stupid to not nip that crap in the bud.

Better to show what they got, see from surveys like this how much inventory they need to build for the release, and let the arm-chir quarterbacks shift to discussions of what the 2nd-gereration iPad's features should be.

Speaking of a broken record....do you have a cushioned seat on that bandwagon?

I have no doubt the iPad will sell millions. There are a lot of people out there looking for a color screened eBook reader. Not me, I want a little more from the device than just browsing the web and reading books.

To me the iPad is like the first generation iPhone, it was a revolutionary piece of crap. When the 3GS came along I grabbed one knowing it was finally a great device. Same thing with the iPad...I'll buy the third version.

Sure, the third gen will be better - we all know that. What you want is a powerful laptop. Neither of which makes the first gen iPad a pice of crap.

The original iPhone didn't start out slow. The iPhone was the biggest phone launch AT&T ever had. It just grew and became bigger as time went on. Palm Pre, Droid, Nexus none of them matched the iPhones launch numbers.

How can you declare the iPad a slow starter when its not even on sale yet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

Every so often the definition what what Jobs thinks is a great product and the public's opinion don't quite mesh (like AppleTV or the cube). The iPad, at least in its initial configuration might be one of those. Some products start out slow and become a hit later when evolve into something much more useful, like for instance the iPhone. My fear though is that Apple won't fully understand why this is underwhelming to a lot of folks.

I do not use apple.My business partner does.I will give credit for the great software.But limited hardware stinks.And yes cheap hardware is most of windows issues and apple does not want that.Hey i get that.As for the ipad.It is the same scam apple pulled on all the buyers of the first iphone.What scam you ask.Several hundreds of dollars for a high tech do it all phone.Ol wait no video camera.For that you would have to go get a $29.00 walmart track phone that HAS IT.How lame.And the apple drones never complained.Why?
Then gen 2 of iphone WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERA WOOOW HOOO. Yea right. Not adding the simple features then adding on next gen is a scam.And for the companies that make hackintosh do you think they would get business if apple would open up to more faster hardware.I hate gates and vista.But the new window 7 not to bad.At least i for $1,800 dollars i get a super laptop and compared to $1,800 to apple.well my hardware smokes.And to be fair i truly love linux opensuse the best.But linux has to many versions to ever make it.Ol the main reason i posted ipad a flop.No camera.But cheer up version 2 will have a camera woo hoo.and maybe another cool feature.

Are people really going to be able to hold them steady enough for long conversations, or are they going to find ways to "prop them up" what chatting?

I wonder if Apple tested cameras in the iPad, and found it was sub-par without some kind of image-stabilization.

I think the case/stand that Apple is selling makes a video-conference camera easy to imagine. And for shorter clips, size/weight can actually improve image stabilization in your hand. Devices that match the size of your hand actually pickup the slight jitters in your hand and finger muscles a lot more than something with enough size/weight to absorb those jitters. And most of the time I hold my iPhone with two hands in horizontal mode when shooting video anyway. It may not be as necessary on the iPad, but these days there's no reason for not having a camera everywhere.

We will probably like it but until it has a camera, hdmi or mini-display port out (through dock is fine), and a properly functioning OS (multi-tasking/tethering or OS X), we will probably all wait. There is no point buying one twice, the first one, and then, when they get things right in Take 2. That is just wasteful and you know once it has the right features you will want the new one. So just be patient since it isn't really needed now anyway.

It really seems Apple is giving the competition room to prosper by failing on these fronts and not offering more 3G bands and universal standards (SIM vs Micro-SIM).

I have no doubt the iPad will sell millions. There are a lot of people out there looking for a color screened eBook reader. Not me, I want a little more from the device than just browsing the web and reading books.

You don't seem to understand or realize that at launch the iPad has a built in ecosystem of 140,000 apps.

Quote:

To me the iPad is like the first generation iPhone, it was a revolutionary piece of crap. When the 3GS came along I grabbed one knowing it was finally a great device. Same thing with the iPad...I'll buy the third version.

You do not seem to understand or realize their had to be an iPhone for their to be an iPhone 3GS.

This whole discussion is ridiculous as there has not even been any advertising yet and the thing hasn't even been released. Only people who are tech-savvy or follow Apple closely will even be aware of it's existence. Sure the story was carried by a few news outlets and Stephen Colbert held one up at the Grammys, but Apple's target audience of your average Joe who is not tech-savvy and just wants something cool doesn't even know the thing exists.

Once this thing gets out into the wild and Apple starts advertising it, it will no doubt be one of the most if not THE most successful products that Apple has ever released.

We will probably like it but until it has a camera, hdmi or mini-display port out (through dock is fine), and a properly functioning OS (multi-tasking/tethering or OS X), we will probably all wait. There is no point buying one twice, the first one, and then, when they get things right in Take 2. That is just wasteful and you know once it has the right features you will want the new one. So just be patient since it isn't really needed now anyway.

It really seems Apple is giving the competition room to prosper by failing on these fronts and not offering more 3G bands and universal standards (SIM vs Micro-SIM).

At $499.00 for the base model plus $399.00 to get it with what we all want, which then isn't a base model, so it will be $998.00 with all of the bells and whistles, and because they want that much for it, we won't want it.

What we want is a Top of the line model, with all of the bells and whistles for $499.00 (well, maybe $599.00)

My fear though is that Apple won't fully understand why this is underwhelming to a lot of folks.

Don't worry. I am sure they understand perfectly. Look at who's complaining, for one. How do you please most of those folks? A LOT of noisy folks is a tiny percentage of the population who will instantly 'get' this device.

Apple needs to stop this nonsense of debuting a product and then saying it will be available X months later.

People show as much interest in the iPad as the Apple TV, which Apple never advertises and word of mouth is not working. If Apple is going to keep public interest up, they are going to have to either debut it again or start advertising it.

Apple would have loved nothing more than to have held its media event for the iPad in March and announced they would start shipping the product immediately. But with a device like this, you have to file with the FCC and that's a public process. In other words, instead of a controlled unveiling, information would have been presented about the product from media accessing Apple's application. The same thing happened with the iPhone. Apple was forced to unveil the product long before it was available for sale.

And in regards to the fact that right now, with zero examples of this product in the wild, interest apppears to be low, well, yes, that's to be expected. When it is available for sale two things are going to happen which will make or break this product. One is that review samples will flood the market and the other is that consumers will start using this thing and their reaction will matter big time. If this device is a game-changer, i.e. changes the portable computing experience for the better, reviewers and consumers need to be experiencing the device in order for there to be any meaningful feedback. If you ask someone who hasn't even tried out a product are they eager to buy one, naturally the reaction would be probably not. Is watching movies on this device amazing? Quite possibly. Is browsing better than on any device that has come before it? Jobs has assured us that it is but who would take his word for it? After all, impartial he's not. But if it is, reviewers and consumers alike will see that and value it. What about the device as a gaming platform? As an e-reader? What's it like to use the device over an extended period of time? Is it light enough? Is the user interface well thought out? Does it work well for students and others needing something to take notes with?

Right now, none of the preceding factors into anyone's decision-making process and yet isn't it the heart of the matter? After all, the iPad diesn't do anything new. All of the things it can do other products can do. The question is, how well does it do them? If the answer is that it's significantly better suited to several tasks than anything else on the market, clearly this device will be a major sales success. And who, among all the folks surveyed, has a clue if that's case? In other words, they're being asked for an opinion about an unreleased product that they really know little about. Kind of pointless.

Survey folks a month or so after the iPad is available for sale and then, maybe, you start to get an idea of how people are going to react to the thing. At least then they will be reacting to the product itself and not to what they might assume the product will be.

$130 extra for 3G is a rip-off. The chip and antenna probably cost $0.50. Hell, the chip is probably just disabled in the non-3G.

Yea and one needs to evaluate how much data they would be using, i.e, 250mg or unlimited 3G ATT plan plus the 3G is PER unit or iPad. With MifI 2200 currently from Sprint or Verizon, one could justify the WiFi only iPad, purchase a 250mg Verizon MiFi plan (currently 39.95) and have up to 5 devices connect to it wirelessly. You really have to evaluate your personal needs. My health care practice will likely purchase WiFi only iPads because we have wireless internet access within the offices and also my home for that matter. If I want to take my iPad where there is no internet access, I have the MiFi. Just my thoughts.

I do not use apple.My business partner does.I will give credit for the great software.But limited hardware stinks.And yes cheap hardware is most of windows issues and apple does not want that.Hey i get that.As for the ipad.It is the same scam apple pulled on all the buyers of the first iphone.What scam you ask.Several hundreds of dollars for a high tech do it all phone.Ol wait no video camera.For that you would have to go get a $29.00 walmart track phone that HAS IT.How lame.And the apple drones never complained.Why?
Then gen 2 of iphone WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERA WOOOW HOOO. Yea right. Not adding the simple features then adding on next gen is a scam.And for the companies that make hackintosh do you think they would get business if apple would open up to more faster hardware.I hate gates and vista.But the new window 7 not to bad.At least i for $1,800 dollars i get a super laptop and compared to $1,800 to apple.well my hardware smokes.And to be fair i truly love linux opensuse the best.But linux has to many versions to ever make it.Ol the main reason i posted ipad a flop.No camera.But cheer up version 2 will have a camera woo hoo.and maybe another cool feature.

Prior to launch, the iPad was anything and everything you could imagine, plus a pony.

Now it's merely an extraordinary device. People who've held one say you must hold one to understand how cool it is, and none of the people polled have done so. The person typing this opinion hasn't done so (meaning me).

But the insane interest before can't be sustained during the 2 months before the iPad hits market. That's life. Don't panic.

These surveys just mean that you won't have line around the block when it is released, which is likely better for everybody. It is reminiscant of the famous "less space than a Nomad, no Wifi, Lame" comment on the original iPod. With all the bashing in the press, of course nobody sees why they might want one.

It will take a little time for the iPad to hit critical mass, but that doesn't mean it will be a failure. Will the ASP be lower than the iPhone... I would assume so, but that doesn't seem to be the general expectation. Apple does need to do something to address the "cheap pc" segment, and from where I sit, this will be a pretty good option even if it doesn't have the conventional openness of a pc.

It is interesting though to see people bashing on it here; that might be best for its long-term success.

Agree with you. The iPad should do more than the iPhone, not less. Most people I talk to say they just don't need an iPad. A MacBook does nicely and is not that much bigger and heavier.

Hate to say it, but this might be a flop for Apple, especially in the New York area where coverage will be spotty at best.

We'll see soon enough.

Provided you already own a Macbook. I'm not sure I'm buying into your friends logic for people that don't own a Macbook already. Saying a Macbook isn't much bigger or heavier is foolish. The iPad is one-third the weight and certainly smaller because of the 9.7 in screen. I've read proclamations of the next Apple flop and other than the Hifi system, bluetooth headset and other smaller ancillary stuff Apple has "beat the street" on every large product intro. I don't see anything in the iPad that has flop written on it. The problem really is the confusion that comes from people on the fringe of the iPads target market failing to realize that the rest of the world doesn't share the same needs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomhenning

There was probably a similar response when Amana introduced the Radarange in 1967. These days we call it a "microwave."

Can you imagine what the chefs were saying? "Can't use metal pots! Doesn't brown! $495! That's a deal-breaker for me."

The survey is of very limited significance and simply shows that there's a difference between fantasy and reality for any manufactured device.

Great post

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oldandintheway

Most of my kids games use flash, without flash it is useless to me.

LOL. Who's really going buy an iPad for their kids to play flash games?

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

So almost 10% say they will buy one?
If that reflects the population at large, Apple will have the greatest hit ever. There are about 250 million people over the age of 18 in the US.
So, sales of 25 million at release?
I'm buying some more Apple stock!

Exactly. Those numbers are HUGE for a product that nobody has seen in the wild yet. Just wait until the first person whips one of these out in a coffee shop. This device really needs to be touched and held to be truly appreciated.

It's a niche device -- not for everyone -- but to have that many people wanting to buy one already is incredible.

It's pretty clear that the difference between before and after on the first graph is a large number of people who hadn't heard of it (and therefore didn't know if they wanted it), now know about it and have decided they don't want it. So?

The number of people interested in it enough to be customers has actually *increased* from the "before" to the "after." Similarly, the number of people interested but still wanting to know more has also gone up. The number of people stil interested but "sure they aren't going to buy one" has actually gone down.

This is all good news for Apple.

Same goes for the second graph. the number of people saying they will buy it has *increased* and the number people thinking about it has also slightly *increased.*

I do not use apple.My business partner does.I will give credit for the great software.But limited hardware stinks.And yes cheap hardware is most of windows issues and apple does not want that.Hey i get that.As for the ipad.It is the same scam apple pulled on all the buyers of the first iphone.What scam you ask.Several hundreds of dollars for a high tech do it all phone.Ol wait no video camera.For that you would have to go get a $29.00 walmart track phone that HAS IT.How lame.And the apple drones never complained.Why?
Then gen 2 of iphone WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERA WOOOW HOOO. Yea right. Not adding the simple features then adding on next gen is a scam.And for the companies that make hackintosh do you think they would get business if apple would open up to more faster hardware.I hate gates and vista.But the new window 7 not to bad.At least i for $1,800 dollars i get a super laptop and compared to $1,800 to apple.well my hardware smokes.And to be fair i truly love linux opensuse the best.But linux has to many versions to ever make it.Ol the main reason i posted ipad a flop.No camera.But cheer up version 2 will have a camera woo hoo.and maybe another cool feature.

What business are you in, you should hire an admin, you have the typing skills of a 13yr old, oh wait, I see. Just to help you out a bit, most people add two spaces, created by hitting the spacebar, after each period ending a sentence.